


The Very Complicated Business Currently Residing in Kate's Stomach

by zarabithia



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: Multi, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a baby is a very complicated thing, especially when Kate's not sure whether Bucky or Clint is the father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Very Complicated Business Currently Residing in Kate's Stomach

Once, when Kate had been six years old, Susan had nearly made them late for Kate's cello practice by fussing over a _doll_. Six-year-old Kate had dolls of her own, of course, but they were not nearly as important at the time as her cello had been, and she had made this known very loudly and very insistently. Kate's mother had scolded her and said, "Babies are a very complicated business, Kate, and your sister needs time to deal with hers appropriately." 

Currently, Kate is closer to 26, and she is sitting on an uncomfortable chair in Hank Pym's lab watching his back while he reviews the findings about the _very complicated business_ currently residing in Kate's stomach.

It's currently really quiet in Hank Pym's lab and Kate can't really handle that quiet right now, because it is making her have flashbacks to missed cello sessions and _oh god, how is she going to tell Susan about this?_

"The hair's okay, right? I mean, I know that usually people swab for DNA from the cheek, but I couldn't exactly come up with a good reason to do that to Bucky and Clint in their sleep." 

Hank Pym looks up from his big desk of science - a desk that is usually reserved for science _other_ than DNA testing, admittedly, but if his Big Desk of Science can have time for both building evil robots and talking to ants, then Kate is pretty sure that DNA tests can fall in the middle of that somewhere. 

"The hair's fine, Miss Bishop. You stole a piece of hair from James and Clint without telling them what it was for?" 

"Clint didn't even wake up, and Bucky just told me that he's sure that's not how S&M is supposed to work before he went back to sleep, which, hey, props to the 40s guy for being up to speed on consensual kink, even if it's not the ones we're normally into." 

Kate stops talking then, because the expression that Hank Pym makes, right around the time she says "S&M" is the kind of pained expression that she hasn't seen since she first told Eli that Bucky was moving into The Hawkeye Apartment. And normally, she would have zero cares about whether or not someone who probably shrinks down to have kinky sex is okay with the idea of her with in some tight leather while holding a whip, but she's going to be a _mom_ , so maybe she should rediscover her tact.

She's going to be somebody's _mom._ If she hadn't already spent three weeks trying to decide whether or not to have this kid, she'd absolutely be freaking out about that. But no. She's made her decision, so there will be no freaking out.

Not from her, anyway. Maybe Clint and Bucky will freak out. 

Clint and Bucky will definitely freak out, which is why she is getting the DNA tested ahead of time, because it will be easier to direct that freakout to whichever one of them managed to have super sperm that conquered both her pills and their condoms. It's going to be easier to handle their freakouts, their collective daddy issues, and _uncle Steve's_ questions if she is able to say "Congrats for knocking me up, Bucky" or "I hope you won't be trying to feed our kid pizza as much as you do with Lucky, Clint," than "Hey, there's a kid of indeterminable parentage in my stomach." 

At least, that's Kate's theory. Clint and Bucky spend a lot of their time trying to completely wreck all of Kate's _best_ theories, so they'll probably screw that up, too. 

"Well, I'm sure they'll appreciate the effort," Hank Pym says, back to being a pro. Definitely a better choice than Tony Stark for this. Not that Kate would trust Tony Stark to do a DNA test. He'd probably steal some DNA and make an army of super assassins for the next time he wanted to win an argument against Captain America. 

"Right. So which one of them is going to appreciate it more? I don't mean to rush you or anything, Dr. Pym, but my boys and me have a lunch date and today is the first day in about two weeks that a supervillain hasn't attacked and I haven't been puking my guts out, so I'd really like to find out if I need to stop and pick up an _entirely_ purple congratulatory cupcake or a purple and blue one at Carla's Bakery on the way."

Maybe she should go for purple and red for Bucky? No, red's always been more of an accent color. He might be trying to hide it in all those black leather jackets these days, but his one, true color is definitely blue. His tighty-whiteys are in fact _blue_ , so if he's the dad, the cupcake is going to be purple and blue. 

Hank Pym smiles at her rambling in a way that Kate is pretty sure she is going to be using when they reach the potty training stage for the kid, because it is absolutely an appropriate smile to use when a kid is aiming for the toilet but ends up urinating all over the floor instead. Which, actually, sounds like something that Clint's child would do on purpose, and if so, Clint is going to be doing _all_ the clean up duty.

Kate is distracted from the line of thought that is leading her to wonder what kind of faces Clint and Bucky are going to be making when changing diapers by Hank Pym saying quietly, "Purple and blue, definitely." 

So, Bucky, then. At least, officially, because this thing they have between them is far too good to give up because of some awful societal expectations to form a perfect little nuclear unit. Which, okay, sounds like she is quoting America, _because she is_ , but it's still true. 

Her baby is going to have two daddies and a mommy, but officially, Bucky is the kid's dad.

"Thanks, Dr. Pym," Kate says, and she gathers her purse and walks to her car.

On the way there, she thinks about Bucky's reaction. What does this mean, other than the fact that she no longer has to worry about fighting with the baby's dad about the fact that they are _not_ going to name the kid Francis? 

_Will_ he freak out? Will he be happy? Will he give her that stupid little grin that he gives each time she or Clint give him the kind of world class blow job that makes any real verbal communication impossible? Will he just fumble his way awkwardly through the conversation, excuse himself, and go cry to Steve about it? 

There is the possibility that he won't want it at all. It doesn't seem very likely - it hadn't ever been a consideration that Kate had taken seriously for Bucky or Clint, because they both had family _issues_ , which is part of the reason that Kate suspects that the three of them work so well. It's pretty hard to deny that the three of them are a big damn family at this point, even without the baby, and that's something Clint and Bucky both need. 

And anyway, it's her stretch marks and possible 10-20 hour labor, according to all the reading Kate has done in the past three weeks, so Bucky's entirely fictional reaction can go fuck itself. 

Once she's behind the wheel, she allows herself to wonder about Clint's reaction. All of Kate's thoughtful stealing of DNA and getting tested so that she could direct the freakout to the appropriate parent suddenly seems silly, because who is she kidding? 

They are both going to have some sort of wild, over the top reaction, regardless. Bucky's reaction might just be quieter and more likely to involve a long bike ride than Clint's reaction. 

Clint is the one they have to take care of at this point. Blah blah, component and experienced hero, blah blah, but he's still the one who needs reassuring and hugs and made to feel special, because he'd lacked an Eleanor Bishop and by the time that Steve Rogers had come into his life, there was only so much sewing back together that even Steve could do for Humpty Dumpty.

Kate's very fond of her Humpty Dumpty, and what if he's jealous? They've mostly avoided that cliche, despite warnings from every single person in their lives that their arrangement would end in a spectacular explosion of jealousy. The lack of a jealous fit can mostly be chalked up to the fact that Clint enjoys needling Bucky as much as he does Kate, and Bucky spent his formative years learning to bitch from _Namor_ , so he can give it back as much as he can take it. Because Clint is perfectly capable of being a little shit, but nobody's as big of a little shit as Namor. 

Oh, god, is their child going to have an _Uncle Namor?_

But more importantly, is Clint going to be _jealous_ that the baby is carrying Bucky's DNA and not his? Is he going to want to try for a baby Barton after this one leaves her uterus? Is that something that Kate wants? 

Well, the kid can't be an only child. So, maybe it is. 

Or maybe Clint won't want to have a kid, after all. He _does_ have daddy issues and big brother issues. Maybe he'll be glad that he dodged the bullet and avoided passing on the Barton family legacy. Maybe he's going to be _relieved._

As she pulls up to the restaurant where she agreed to meet Clint and Bucky, Kate realizes that she's rehashing the same arguments that she's already spent three weeks contemplating. She also realizes that she completely forgot to stop by the bakery and pick up Bucky's congratulatory purple and blue cupcake. 

Her mother had been right. Babies _are_ complicated. 

But Kate gets out of the car and catches sight of Bucky and Clint, with Clint's hand possessively squeezing Bucky's upper thigh in the kind of way that had initially been designed to test Bucky's comfort levels with PDA, but is now a genuine form of affection.

It is complicated, but some forms of complication can be _good_ things, Kate thinks, as she goes to join her boys.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Google actually tells me that doing a pre-birth DNA test can increase the chances of a miscarriage. However, I expect that the scientists of their world are more advanced and therefore, this is not the case. I AM certain that if you drop someone into the ocean for 70 years they will be dead when you find them, so comic book science ftw? I don't know, they have polar bears in the SOUTH POLE in their universe so I feel entirely justified in tossing real science out the window.


End file.
